Li, China Leadership Monitor, No. 25
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Ethnic Minority Elites in China’s Party-State Leadership:
An Empirical Assessment
Cheng Li
Recent uprisings across Tibetan regions of China as well as purported
terror plots planned by Uighur separatists seeking independence for
Xinjiang have highlighted the challenges that the Chinese Communist
Party faces in governing a Han-dominant but multiethnic China. How
China handles the “nationalities question” will be a crucial determinant of
social stability going forward. Chinese top leaders have long recognized
the value to the Party of having ethnic minority cadres among the Party-
state elites, both for propaganda purposes as well as to inspire minority
peoples to view the system as containing opportunities for their own
advancement. Yet the Party has also maintained a firm grip on power in
the ethnic minority-dominant political units by appointing ethnic Hans to
the most important positions. An understanding the changing role of
ethnic minorities in Chinese politics is essential for comprehending the
dynamics of China’s rapidly transforming political landscape.
In the wake of the recent unrest in Tibet, ethnic tensions in China are in the spotlight of
the international media.1 The overseas torch rally for the Beijing Summer Olympics,
which was supposed to promote China’s prestige and influence, met with worldwide
protests over China’s treatment of Tibet, reinforcing the fact that the Tibet issue has
severely damaged China’s public image on the world stage. Ethnic conflict in the
People’s Republic of China (PRC) is, of course, not limited to the Tibetan region.
Relations between the central government and several other ethnic minority groups in the
country, most noticeably Uighurs, the largest Turkic Muslim population in China’s
northwestern province of Xinjiang, have also been beset by a great deal of trouble in
recent years. In the spring of 2008, for example, the Chinese authorities announced that
they had uncovered two terrorist plots involving kidnappings and a suicide bombing
planned for the upcoming Beijing Olympics. Officials claimed that both were linked to
the Uighur Muslim separatist movement.2 These developments suggest that the Chinese
government now has a pressing need to address ethnic tensions in the country, which
have increasingly become a major liability for China’s development.3 At a time when Hu
Jintao and other top leaders have publicly placed priority on enhancing social harmony,
the frequent occurrence of ethnic-related riots and other incidents in the country
significantly undermines the central leadership’s claims to be building a “harmonious
society.”
One strategy for reconciling ethnic tensions in Han-dominant China has been to
recruit more ethnic minority elites into the political establishment. Chinese authorities
Li, China Leadership Monitor, No. 25
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have, in fact, made a concerted effort to promote ethnic minority elites to leadership
positions. For the first time in PRC history, all of the governors of China’s five
provincial-level ethnic minority autonomous regions—the Tibet Autonomous Region
(TAR), the Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region, the Inner Mongolia Autonomous
Region, the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous
Region—have ethnic minority backgrounds. At the recently held 11th National People’s
Congress (NPC), Yang Chuantang, a Han leader who previously served as Party secretary
of Tibet, was designated to become the new minister of the State Ethnic Affairs
Commission. At the last moment, however, the Chinese top leadership decided to change
this appointment because it was deemed politically inappropriate for a Han Chinese to
hold this position. Instead, Yang Jing, a Mongolian and former governor of Inner
Mongolia, was nominated and confirmed for this position.4
At the same time as it has appointed minority leaders to top posts in the ethnic
minority regions, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has also maintained its firm
control over these provinces by giving the most important leadership posts—the Party
secretary positions—to cadres who come from Han Chinese backgrounds. Indeed, none
of the Party secretary posts in any of the five provincial-level minority autonomous
regions are currently held by an ethnic minority leader. Wang Lequan, a Han Chinese
member of the Politburo, has served as Party secretary of Xinjiang since 1994. His tenure
as provincial Party chief has already far exceeded the 10-year term limit regulated by the
Organization Department of the CCP. Also of interest is the fact that, with the exception
of Xinjiang, where all of the vice-governors are CCP members, each and every one of
China’s 31 provincial-level governments has a vice-governor who is a non-CCP
member.5 These facts perhaps reflect Chinese authorities’ serious concerns about the
separatist movement in Xinjiang; and they have to make sure that the provincial
leadership in this ethnic minority region is absolutely in line with the CCP policy.
A review of the status of ethnic minority leaders in China, especially in minority
autonomous regions, can help shed light on the dilemmas that the top leadership
confronts with respect to ethnic tensions. While the Chinese authorities need to recruit
and promote more non-Han leaders to carry out the Party-state’s minority policies and
demonstrate Chinese affirmative action to the public, they also want to make sure that
Han Chinese leaders are firmly in charge.
This article offers an empirical assessment of ethnic minority elites in China’s
Party-state leadership at both the national and provincial levels, beginning with an
overview of the growth of the ethnic minority population in the PRC and the changes in
major ethnic groups in recent years. It then examines the minority policies of the Chinese
leadership and the changes in ethnic representation in some of the most important
leadership organs of the Party-state, such as the CCP Central Committee. The article
analyzes the composition and characteristics of those ethnic minority elites, some of
whom are in their 50s and early 60s and are members of the so-called fifth generation of
leaders.
Li, China Leadership Monitor, No. 25
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The Growth and Distribution of Ethnic Minority Population
China, unlike Japan or Korea, is usually not considered an ethnically homogeneous
country. Nonetheless, Han Chinese account for an estimated 91.5 percent of the total
population of the country, or 1.2 billion of the 1.3 billion people in China. In addition to
the majority Han Chinese, the Chinese government officially recognizes 55 other
“nationalities,” or ethnic minorities, numbering approximately 106 million people.6
Although the ethnic minority population constitutes only 8.5 percent of the population at
present, the geographic area of those political units under the “autonomous”
administration of ethnic minorities accounts for 64 percent of the total area of the
country.7 These ethnic minorities vary greatly in terms of their population size. Eighteen
of them exceed one million people, and they are: Zhuang, Manchu, Hui, Miao, Uighur,
Tujia, Yi, Mongol, Tibetan, Buyi, Dong, Yao, Korean, Bai, Hani, Kazakh, Li, and Dai.8
The largest ethnic minority, the Zhuang, had over 16 million people in 2000 when China
conducted its fifth national census. By contrast, the seven smallest ethnic minorities have
populations of less than 10,000. The smallest ethnic group is the Lhoba, a group that
resides in Tibet. This ethnic minority had only 2,965 people in 2000.9
Chart 1 shows the growth of the ethnic minority population in the PRC from 1953
to 2000, based on the five national censuses conducted in 1953, 1964, 1982, 1990, and
2000. The ethnic minority groups’ percentage of the total population of the country
increased from 6.06 percent in 1953 to 8.41 percent in 2000. It should be noted that the
Chinese government’s “one-child policy,” first adopted in 1979, has not been applied to
many ethnic minority groups. In general, ethnic minority families can have two or even
three children. Rural farmers and herdsmen in Tibet face no restrictions in terms of the
number of children they can have.10
This helps explain the relatively rapid increase in the
percentage of minority groups in the country during this period.
Chart 1: Growth of Ethnic Minority Population and Percentage of
Total PRC Population (5th National Census, 2000)
35.5240.04
67.30
91.20
106.43
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
1953 1964 1982 1990 2000
Year
Mil
lion
s of
Peo
ple
6.06%5.76%
6.68%
8.04%
8.41%
Source: 2006 nian Zhongguo tongji nianjian (China Statistics Yearbook 2006), (Beijing: Zhongguo tongji
chubanshe, 2006); http://number.cnki.net/bigImage.aspx?id=51031, and
http://number.cnki.net/bigImage.aspx?id=51033.
Li, China Leadership Monitor, No. 25
4
The growth rate of the ethnic minority groups varies widely from one group to
another. Table 1 shows the population and distribution of China’s top 10 ethnic minority
groups and the Han Chinese majority. With the exception of Zhuang and Manchu, all
other minority groups had much faster growth rates than those of the Han Chinese
between 1990 and 2000. The low growth rate of the Zhuang and Manchu is largely due to
the fact that they are well integrated into the national community. Many members in
these two groups are so intermarried that they have lost their distinctive cultural
identities. A large number of people in these two groups presumably identify themselves
as Han Chinese rather than ethnic minorities.
Table 1
Population and Distribution of China’s Top 10 Ethnic Minority Groups and the Han
Chinese Majority (1990–2000)
Ethnic
group
Population
(1990)
Population
(2000)
Growth
rate (%) Main location
Han 1,042,480,000 1,159,400,000 11.22 Entire country
Zhuang 15,489,630 16,178,811 4.45 Guangxi, Yunnan, Guizhou,
Hunan
Manchu 9,821,180 10,682,263 8.77 Liaoning, Heilongjiang, Jilin,
Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Beijing
Hui 8,602,978 9,816,802 14.11
Ningxia, Gansu, Henan,
Xinjiang, Qinghai, Yunnan,
Hebei, Shandong, Anhui,
Beijing
Miao 7,398,035 8,940,116 20.84 Guizhou, Yunnan, Hunan,
Sichuan, Guangxi, Hubei
Uighur 7,214,431 8,399,393 16.42 Xinjiang, Hunan
Tujia 5,704,223 8,028,133 40.74 Hubei, Hunan, Sichuan
Yi 6,572,173 7,762,286 18.11 Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou
Mongol 4,806,849 5,813,947 20.95
Inner Mongolia, Liaoning,
Xinjiang, Heilongjiang, Jilin,
Qinghai, Hebei, Henan
Tibetan 4,593,330 5,416,021 17.91 Tibet, Sichuan, Qinghai,
Gansu, Yunnan
Buyi 2,545,059 2,971,460 16.75 Guizhou
Source and Notes: Data are based on the fourth national census of the PRC completed in July 1990 and the
fifth national census of the PRC completed in November 2000. http://hi.baidu.com/yuh1985/blog/item/
bec0a6eca522242462d09f30.html; and http://www.stats.gov.cn/tjgb/rkpcgb/.
Table 1 also shows that most of these minorities are concentrated in autonomous
regions and provinces in the northwest, north, northeast, south, and southwest parts of the
country.11 Indeed, the combined ethnic minority populations of Guangxi, Yunnan,
Guizhou, and Xinjiang account for half of the total minority population in the country.12
Most of these ethnic minority autonomous regions, prefectures, and counties are
Li, China Leadership Monitor, No. 25
5
economically underdeveloped, especially in comparison with many coastal areas of the
country. According to an official CCP report in 2006, of the 80 million people in China
living below the poverty line, 80 percent reside in the ethnic minority regions.13
Although Han Chinese have a relatively lower population growth rate in
comparison with most of the ethnic minority groups in the country, the absolute number
of Han Chinese nonetheless increased by nearly 117 million people between 1990 and
2000. According to one official Chinese source, in three minority autonomous regions
(Inner Mongolia, Guangxi, and Ningxia), the number of Han Chinese has already
surpassed that of the minority groups, while in Xijiang, the Han account for 40 percent of
the total population.14
The ethnic composition of Tibet is one of the most contentious points of dispute
between the Chinese government and the Tibetan exiles. According to the Xinhua News
Agency, there are some 2.5 million Tibetans living in the Tibet Autonomous Region,
accounting for 95.3 percent of its total population, while the percentage of Han Chinese
has never exceeded 6 percent.15 According to the International Campaign for Tibet (ICT),
on the other hand, these official figures “fail to record the non-registered floating Chinese
population in Tibet” and the large number of Chinese military personnel there.16 The
recent completion of the railroad connecting Chengdu and Lhasa has hastened the influx
of Han Chinese migration into Tibet.
As for other ethnic minority issues in the PRC, approximately 2 million Koreans
are PRC citizens. Most of them reside in the three northeastern provinces of China. It is
believed that about 1.2 million South Koreans presently live in China as business
representatives, factory workers, and exchange students.17 In recent years, about 300,000
North Korean refugees found their homes in Beijing and other parts of China.
Meanwhile, approximately 500,000 PRC citizens with Korean ethnicity live, work, and
study in South Korea. It has also been widely noticed that Chinese and Koreans have
territorial disputes. Strong nationalistic sentiments in China and the Korean Peninsula are
on the rise, as evident in the frequent occurrence of ethnic tensions between the Chinese
and Koreans in the recent years. It is important to note how the Chinese Koreans will
react to these developments.
Recruiting and Promoting Ethnic Minority Leaders
As the ethnic minority population has grown rapidly over the past half century, the
number of ethnic minority cadres has also significantly increased. According to official
Chinese sources, the number of ethnic minority cadres at all levels of leadership
increased from about 10,000 in 1950 to almost 3 million in 2007.18 The CCP leaders have
been explicit about the necessity of recruiting and promoting more ethnic elites into the
Party-state leadership. In an interview with the People’s Daily in 2007, Li Dezhu, then-
minister of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission, observed that “since the Second World
War, the world has had 332 major international disputes, violent conflicts, and wars; and
278 of them were caused by ethnic tensions, which accounted for 83.73 percent of the
Li, China Leadership Monitor, No. 25
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total.”19
According to Li, ethnic tensions have often been intertwined with religious,
cultural, economic, and sociopolitical issues, and have frequently linked domestic
problems with international conflicts. As such, ethnic issues in China, in Li’s view, have
“profound implications for state sovereignty, territorial integrity, social stability,
economic vitality, border security, and national unity.”20
Soon after becoming a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese
Communist Party in 1993, Hu Jintao made a long and important speech at the National
Conference on the Promotion of Ethnic Minority Cadres. In the speech, Hu argued that
recruiting and promoting ethnic minority leaders is a major strategic objective for the
PRC, one that “will determine whether China can resolve its ethnic problems and whether
the Chinese state can achieve long-term sociopolitical stability.”21
Hu particularly
emphasized that the CCP should provide more educational and training opportunities as
well as leadership experiences for young ethnic minority cadres.
One important development in terms of promoting ethnic minority leaders is in
the realm of legislation. In 2002, for example, China’s NPC revised the Law of Ethnic
Minority Autonomous Areas of the People’s Republic of China. The revised law now
specifies that the top post of the local government in all ethnic minority autonomous
areas should be held by a leader who hails from the same ethnic minority background as
the majority of the citizens in that area.22 According to one official Chinese source, at
present all of the heads of China’s 155 local governments that have status as ethnic
minority autonomous areas, including five provincial-level regions (qu), 30 prefectures
(zhou) and 120 counties (xian or qi), are non-Han ethnic minority leaders.23 The post of
head of the local government is usually considered the second-highest-ranking official in
a given administrative jurisdiction, second only to the Party secretary.
Table 2 (next page) shows the change in representation of ethnic minority leaders
on the Central Committee of the CCP since the Eighth Party Congress in 1956, the first
Party congress held after the founding of the PRC. Ethnic minority leaders have occupied
more seats on this important decision-making body in the reform era than during the Mao
era. In the five congresses held since 1987, ethnic minority members usually constituted
from about 10 to 11 percent; almost double their numbers from the five congresses of the
earlier period. A total of 40 ethnic minority leaders serve on the 17th Central Committee
as both full and alternate members.
Table 3 (next page) shows the distribution of leaders by ethnic background. In
addition to the ethnic minority members on the 17th
Central Committee, the table also
includes ethnic minority leaders at the provincial and ministerial levels who belong to the
fifth generation (i.e., those born between 1950 and 1965).24
The Hui, Zhuang, Tibetan,
Mongolian, and Uighur ethnic groups have the highest representation on the 17th CC, and
(text continues on p. 8)
Li, China Leadership Monitor, No. 25
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Table 2
National Minority Representation on the Central Committee (CC)
of the Chinese Communist Party
CC Year Number Percentage
8th
1956 9 5.2
9th
1969 13 4.6
10th
1973 18 5.6
11th
1977 19 5.7
12th
1982 31 8.0
13th
1987 32 11.2
14th
1992 33 10.3
15th
1997 38 11.0
16th
2002 35 9.8
17th
2007 40 10.8
Notes and sources: This includes both full and alternate members of the CC. Cheng Li and Lynn White,
“The Sixteenth Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party: Hu Gets What?” Asian Survey Vol.
43, No. 4 (July/August), pp. 553-597. For the data on the 17th
CC, see http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2007-10-
28/082514179177.shtml.
Table 3
Distribution of Leaders by Ethnic Background
Members of the
17th
Central Committee
Fifth-generation leaders
(provincial level or above)
Nationality Number Percentage Number Percentage
Han 331 89.2 477 88.7
Hui 8 2.2 5 0.9
Zhuang 7 1.9 3 0.6
Tibetan 4 1.1 14 2.6
Mongolian 4 1.1 9 1.7
Uighur 3 0.8 4 0.7
Manchu 2 0.5 5 0.9
Miao 2 0.5 5 0.9
Korean 2 0.5 2 0.4
Tujia 2 0.5 2 0.4
Yi 1 0.3 5 0.9
Bai 1 0.3 2 0.4
Buyi 1 0.3 1 0.2
Dai 1 0.3 1 0.2
Kazakh 1 0.3 1 0.2
Yao 1 0.3 1 0.2
Naxi — — 1 0.2
Total 371 100.0 538 100.0
Li, China Leadership Monitor, No. 25
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(continued from p. 6)
Tibetan, Mongolian, Hui, Manchu, Miao, and Yi minority groups are well-represented
among the fifth generation of leaders. Table 4 provides information about the Party-state
leadership positions of those 61 ethnic minority leaders in the fifth generation. Most of
them work in the provincial leadership, including 4 (6.6 percent) full governors, 37 (60.7
percent) vice-governors, and 7 (11.5 percent) who serve in other provincial leadership
positions. They constitute 78.8 percent of the total number of fifth-generation leaders
with ethnic minority backgrounds. Only two ethnic minority leaders serve in the
leadership of the departments of the CCP Central Committee: Sita, vice-director of the
United Front Work of the CCP Central Committee, a Tibetan; and Ouyang Jian, vice-
director of the Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee, a member of the
Bai ethnic group. Sita was one of two senior-level leaders who participated in dialogue
with the Dalai Lama’s special emissaries in the past two years.
Table 4
Distribution of the Leadership Positions Held by the Fifth-Generation
Leaders with Ethnic Minority Backgrounds
Positions Number Percentage
Central CCP organs 2 3.3
Ministers 1 1.6
Vice-ministers 4 6.6
Governors 4 6.6
Vice-governors 37 60.7
Other provincial leaders 7 11.5
College presidents 1 1.6
Municipal leaders 4 6.6
Mass organization leaders 1 1.6
Total 61 100.0
Table 5 (next page) lists all of the most prominent ethnic minority elites in the
current national leadership of the PRC. Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu, a Hui, is the only
ethnic minority leader who serves on the 17th Politburo. Hui has not spent much of his
career in minority regions. He served as a provincial leader in the Han-dominated
provinces of Jilin, Hubei, Anhui, and Jiangsu for most of his career before he was
promoted to the Politburo in 2002. Since the founding of the PRC in 1949, only three
other ethnic minority leaders have served on this important leadership body. These were:
Ulanhu, a Mongolian; Wei Guoqing, a Zhuang; and Seypidin Eziz, a Uighur. From the
13th
to the 15th
Party Congress, a period of 15 years between 1987 and 2002, no ethnic
minorities served on the Politburo. As yet, no ethnic minority leader has ever risen to
membership on the Politburo Standing Committee.
In addition to Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu, two other ethnic minority leaders
currently serve on the State Council. These are State Councilor Dai Bingguo, a member
of the Tujia ethnic minority, and Yang Jing, a Mongolian who serves as minister of the
State Ethnic Affairs Commission. Among the 28 ministers on the State Council, Yang is
Li, China Leadership Monitor, No. 25
9
the only member of an ethnic minority. Two ethnic minority leaders serve as vice-chairs
of the NPC and five ethnic minority leaders serve as vice-chairs of the Chinese People’s
Political Consultative Conference, including the 98-year-old Tibetan Ngapoi Ngawang
Jigme. At one point, reports were circulating that Chinese authorities planned to elevate
Gyaltsen Norbu, the Beijing-appointed Panchen Lama, to the post of vice-chairman of the
NPC at the 11th NPC session in March 2008. That this did not happen is apparently
attributable to the fact that Norbu was not yet 18 years old, the minimum age requirement
for a delegate to the NPC.25
Most of the ethnic leaders listed in table 5 were born in the
1940s. These ethnic minority leaders at the national level have usually advanced their
political careers through the ranks of provincial leadership.
Table 5
High-Ranking Ethnic Minority Leaders in the National Leadership of the PRC (2008)
Name Current position
17th
Central
Committee
status Nationality
Birth
year Birthplace
Main career
experience
Hui
Liangyu Vice-premier
Politburo
member Hui 1944 Jilin
Provincial
leadership
Dai
Bingguo State councilor Full member Tujia 1941 Guizhou
Foreign
service
Yang Jing Minister of State Ethnic
Affairs Committee Full member Mongolian 1953
Inner
Mongolia
Provincial
leadership
Uyunqimg
(f) Vice-chair of NPC Full member Mongolian 1942 Liaoning
Provincial
leadership
Ismail
Tiliwaldi Vice-chair of NPC Full member Uighur 1944 Xinjiang
Provincial
leadership
Ngapoi
Ngawang
Jigme
Vice-chair of CPPCC None Tibetan 1910 Tibet NPC
leadership
Pagbalha
Geleg
Namagyai
Vice-chair of CPPCC None Tibetan 1940 Tibet Provincial
leadership
Li
Zhaozhuo Vice-chair of CPPCC Full member Zhuang 1944 Guangxi
Provincial
leadership
Bai
Lichen Vice-chair of CPPCC Full member Hui 1941 Liaoning
Provincial
leadership
Abdulahat
Aburixit Vice-chair of CPPCC Full member Uighur 1942 Xinjiang
Provincial
leadership
Lu Bing Vice-chair of Ethnic
Affairs Comm. of NPC Full member Zhuang 1944 Guangxi
Provincial
leadership
Li
Chengyu
Chair of All China
Federation of Supply &
Marketing Co-op
Full member Hui 1946 Ningxia Provincial
leadership
Li Jingtian
Executive vice
president of Central
Party School
Full member Manchu 1948 Inner
Mongolia
Party
organization
Notes: Comm. = Committee; Co-op = Co-operative; CPPCC = Chinese People’s Political Consultative
Conference; f = female; NPC = National People’s Congress.
Table 6 lists current top ethnic minority leaders in the provincial leadership. Most
(text continues on p. 11)
Li, China Leadership Monitor, No. 25
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Table 6
Top Ethnic Minority Leaders in the Provincial Leadership of the PRC (2008)
Name Current position
17th
Central
Committee
status Nationality
Birth
year Birthplace
Main career
experience
Shi Zongyuan Guizhou Party secretary Full member Hui 1946 Hebei Provincial leadership
Wang Zhengwei Ningxia governor Full member Hui 1957 Ningxia Provincial leadership
Qiangba Puncog Tibet governor Full member Tibetan 1947 Tibet Provincial leadership
Bater Inner Mongolia
acting governor None Mongolia 1955 Liaoning Provincial leadership
Ma Biao Guangxi governor Alternate
member Zhuang 1954 Guangxi Provincial leadership
Nur Bekri Xinjiang governor Alternate
member Uighur 1961 Xinjiang Provincial leadership
Legqog Chair of Tibet NPC Full member Tibetan 1944 Tibet Provincial leadership
Pagbalha Geleg Namagyai Chair of Tibet CPPCC None Tibetan 1940 Tibet Provincial leadership
Ailigeng Yimingbahai Chair of Xinjiang NPC None Uyghur 1953 Xinjiang Provincial leadership
Ashat Kerimbay Chair of Xinjiang CPPCC Full member Kazakh 1947 Xinjiang Provincial leadership
Huang Yao Chair of Guizhou CPPCC None Buyi 1948 Guizhou Provincial leadership
Notes: CPPCC = Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference; NPC = National People’s Congress
Li, China Leadership Monitor, No. 25
11
(continued from p. 11)
of them were born in the same province or autonomous region in which they now serve.
All advanced their political careers through the ranks of provincial leadership. Most of
them were born in the 1940s and 1950s. One exception is Xinjiang governor Nur Bekri,
who was born in 1961. He is presently one of just six full minister- or governor-level
leaders in China born in the 1960s.26
Only one ethnic minority leader, Guizhou Party
secretary Shi Zongyuan, serves as provincial Party secretary in China’s 31 province-level
administrations. Although ethnic minority leaders serve as governors in each of China’s
five ethnic minority autonomous regions, without exception it is Han Chinese leaders
who occupy the posts of Party secretary in these regions.
It is also worth noting that Han Chinese leaders who serve as Party secretary or
deputy Party secretary in Tibet are often given opportunities for further promotion. The
most noteworthy example is, of course, Hu Jintao, who served as Party secretary of Tibet
from 1988 to 1992 before being appointed to the Politburo Standing Committee. During
the past few months, the CCP has appointed three leaders with substantial leadership
experiences in Tibet to important positions. These include Beijing mayor Guo Jinlong,
who was deputy Party secretary and Party secretary of Tibet from 1993 to 2004; acting
governor of Hebei Province Hu Chunhua, who previously served as deputy Party
secretary of Tibet from 2003 to 2006; and Wuhan Party secretary Yang Song, who held
the posts of vice-governor and deputy Party secretary of Tibet between 1993 and 2006.
These Han Chinese leaders were not necessarily all hardliners in their approach to the
Tibet issue, but they were all known for their obedience to the orders of the central
government and their firm control over this ethnically contentious region. Of course, the
current Party secretary of Tibet, Zhang Qingli, has established a reputation as a hardliner
who is ready to use force to crack down on any Tibetan protests.
Concluding Thoughts
For understandable reasons, the Chinese Communist Party is not willing to give up its
power over personnel appointments, particularly in China’s five ethnic minority
autonomous regions. The growing ethnic tensions in Tibet and Xinjiang have led Chinese
authorities to conclude that they need to exert tighter control over these regions. In
practice, this has meant appointing Han Chinese leaders to serve in the most important
posts in these administrative units. At the same time, top Chinese leaders have recognized
the value of having ethnic minority cadres serve in the Party-state elite, both for
propaganda purposes as well as to inspire minority peoples to view the system as
containing opportunities for their own advancement and therefore work within the system
rather than against it. Those ethnic minority elites who have been appointed by the CCP
Organization Department have usually gone through a great deal of scrutiny to make sure
that they are loyal to the Communist regime and will obediently carry out the orders of
the Party’s national leadership.
As in many other countries today, ethnic identity in China is becoming an
increasingly important political issue. The recent riots in Tibet and the worldwide
Li, China Leadership Monitor, No. 25
12
protests they helped fuel over the Olympic torch rally suggest that ethnic tensions in
China may constitute a major liability for the country’s future stability and territorial
integrity. How top Chinese leaders handle ethnic tensions and how effectively they
recruit ethnic minorities into the political establishment will be not only crucial
determinants of social stability going forward, but also major criteria for China’s
international image.
Notes 1 The author is indebted to Yinsheng Li for his research assistance. The author also thanks Sally Carman,
Christina Culver, and Scott W. Harold for suggesting ways in which to clarify the article. 2 The government arrested 35 people that it claimed were involved in the first plot and 10 people
supposedly involved in the second one. Both plots were purportedly linked to the Eastern Turkistan Islamic
Movement, which the U.S. government has listed as a terrorist group. See http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2008
-04-11/040015333139.shtml. Also see Guangzhou Daily, 11 April 2008. 3 For more discussion on the ethnic issues in China, see Dru C. Gladney, Dislocating China: Muslims,
Minorities, and Other Subaltern Subjects (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 2004); and Robyn
Iredale, Naran Bilik, and Fei Guo, eds., China’s Minorities on the Move: Selected Case Studies (Armonk,
NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2003). 4 See http://www.dwnews.com/gb/MainNews/SinoNews/Mainland/2008_3_12_17_37_13_664.html.
5 Cheng Li, “China’s Fifth Generation: Is Diversity a Source of Strength or Weakness?” Asia Policy, no. 6
(July 2008, forthcoming). 6 In 1979, the Chinese government recognized 55 ethnic minorities in the country. This number has
remained fixed. See http://www.seac.gov.cn/ZT/xghgszn/2007-04-28/1177750836062379.htm. For more
discussion of the population growth of ethnic minorities in China, see Jiang Ping, ed., Zhongguo minzu
wenti lilun yu shijian (China’s Ethnic Minority Issue: Theory and Practice). Beijing: The Central Party
School Press, 1994), pp. 492–496. 7 See http://www.fmcoprc.gov.hk/chn/xwfb/zfbps/t55528.htm.
8 This is based on the fifth national census conducted in November 1, 2000. See
http://hi.baidu.com/yuh1985/blog/item/bec0a6eca522242462d09f30.html. 9 Ibid.
10See http://www.china.com.cn/ch-book/shaoshu/shaoshu3.htm.
11 For more discussion of the distribution of ethnic minority groups in China, see Wu Shimin, ed., Minzu
wenti gailun (Introduction to Ethnic Issues), 3rd
edition (Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Publishing House,
2007). 12
For an overview of ethnic minority issues and backgrounds from the perspective of Chinese authorities,
see http://www.showchina.org/zgmz/jbqk/200701/t104950.htm. 13
For a more thorough discussion of the CCP policy toward the recruitment and promotion of ethnic
minority elites, see http://www.bjdj.gov.cn/Article/ShowArticle.asp?ArticleID=10873. 14
See http://www.showchina.org/zgmz/jbqk/200701/t104950.htm. 15
These data were cited by the Chinese officials at a recent press conference in Beijing, see
http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2008-04/10/content_7954932.htm. 16
See http://www.savetibet.org/news/positionpapers/populationinflux.php. 17
The discussion on the Koreans in this paper, including all the statistics cited, is based on the author’s
interview with a PRC think tank member, which was conducted in Washington DC on 5 June 2008. 18
See http://ns.luan.gov.cn/citizen/10/news_52595_0.html. 19
Renmin ribao (People’s Daily), 19 June 2007. 20
Ibid. 21
For Hu Jintao’s speech, see http://news.xinhuanet.com/ziliao/2005-03/17/content_2710193.htm. 22
For the amendment of this law in 2004, see http://www.seac.gov.cn/gjmw/zcfg/2004-07-10/11
68742761853498.htm. 23
See http://www.china.com.cn/ch-book/shaoshu/shaoshu1.htm. 24
Li, “China’s Fifth Generation.”
Li, China Leadership Monitor, No. 25
13
25
See http://news.cctv.com/china/20080304/102425.shtml. 26
The other five are Zhang Qingwei (b. 1961), the minister-rank chairman of China Commercial Aircraft Co.; Sun
Zhengcai (b. 1963), minister of agriculture; Zhou Qiang (b. 1960), who serves as the governor of Hunan Province;
acting governor of Hebei Province Hu Chunhua (b. 1963); and secretary of the Chinese Communist Youth League
Lu Hao (b. 1967).